Shell Programming and Scripting

This code strips out any []. It works great

Code:

echo "127[.]0[.]0[.]1" | tr -d "[]"

I would like to do the same thing but with shell scripting. User would enter:

Code:

./test 127[.]0[.]0[.]1

Output should be: 127.0.0.1
I would like to assign it to a different variable. I have something like this but I get a syntax error and I'm not sure why.

Code:

#!/bin/bash
a=$1 | tr -d "[]"
echo $a

This works just fine:

Code:

echo $1 | tr -d "[]"

But I would like to assign it to a variable and I don't know how.

Hello Loc,

Could you please try following and let me know if this helps you.

Code:

cat script.ksh
VAR=$(echo $1 | tr -d "[]")
echo $VAR

So following will be output while running it.

Code:

./script.ksh 127[.]0[.]0[.]1
127.0.0.1

Thanks,
R. Singh

I thought it would display the output twice because you used echo twice but it's not the case. This works great. thank you

That's what the $( ... ) brackets do, they capture output so you can assign it to something.

How about pure shell (Parameter Expansion : Pattern substitution):

Code:

echo $1, ${1//[][]}
127[.]0[.]0[.]1, 127.0.0.1

I guess you mean

Code:

./script.ksh '127[.]0[.]0[.]1'

instead of

Code:

./script.ksh 127[.]0[.]0[.]1

because without the quotes, your script would not see the brackets.

Hi rovf,
If, and only if, there is a file named 127.0.0.1 in the directory in which you invoke the command:

Code:

./script.ksh 127[.]0[.]0[.]1

then the shell would start script.ksh with $1 set to 127.0.0.1. Otherwise, the shell would start script.ksh with $1 set to 127[.]0[.]0[.]1.

With the specific code suggested in this thread in posts #2 and #5, the output produced would be identical if the input operand is single-quoted, double-quoted, backslash-escaped, or unquoted.